Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

Remember the days when the power would go out and you’d bust out the industrial-sized flashlights, candles, and prepare yourself for a long, quiet, dark night until the power was restored? As frustrating as it could be, those times were oddly and distinctly enjoyable. Well, these days seem to now be long gone, having been seized by the ubiquitous social media.

It seems about just the right time to take a minute or two to discuss something that has been having a very high impact on us lately: power outages. With Hurricane Isaac having recently torn through certain parts of the nation (not to mention the fact that hurricane season is nowhere near over yet), power outages are commonplace. One company has taken note of this and is now offering a Facebook (News - Alert) application which enables customers to report power outages online.

ComEd, an Illinois-based utility and energy delivery company, has recently launched the app for customers’ reporting of power outages. A recent AllFacebook article explains how customers simply click the “Report an Outage” tab on the company’s Facebook page, where they can then report to the company when and where they’ve lost their power. The app also serves as quite a convenience by allowing customers to also check on the status of outages via the app, which the company touts as the first of its kind.

ComEd, who serves almost four million customers in northern Illinois, offers customers several unique ways to report power outages, ranging from text messaging as well as an app for Apple and Android (News - Alert) phones. This app could be particularly advantageous for those who have preserved power and would like to report nearby outages, added a ComEd spokesperson.

Val Jensen, ComEd senior vice president, customer operations, elaborated on how high-tech social media are making a big impact on customer engagement, which the company wanted a piece of:

“Enabling customers to report an outage using ComEd’s Facebook page is another important tool our customers can use to let us know the power is out in their area,” Jensen said in a statement. “The quicker we know about an outage, the quicker we can respond and restore power.”

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX. Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Follow us on Twitter.